Steven Slater was already having a bad day. He had just landed at JFK from Pittsburgh a tad late and his passengers were restless. One even got up to fetch her hand baggage while the aircraft was still on its way to the gate. Slater told the woman to sit down, but she just ignored him. More forcefully, he told her to leave the carry-on bag in the overhead bin and to immediately be seated.

She continued to flout his instructions, so he got up to confront her. As he neared her seat, she finally dislodged her oversized carry-on bag and inadvertently swung it as it wedged out of the compact overhead bin. It smacked Mr. Slater on the face and cut his forehead. He asked the woman for an apology, but she refused and promptly told him to "go f— yourself". Then things got bad…

Angry at his lame job with a crappy airline and livid at the way he had just been disrespected by a foul-mouthed passenger as drops of blood dripped on his dark blue uniform, he determined that enough was enough. Now past the breaking point, he reached for the PA and greeted the beleaguered cabin with a string of expletives, including special variations of the f-bomb for the irksome woman.

But his soliloquy did not assuage his anger. Having already surpassed the point of no return, Slater decided to go out with gusto. After grabbing a handful of beers (after all, it would be quite a hike home), he ripped open the emergency exit door toward the aft of the plane and deployed the emergency exit slide. After loudly stating, "There goes 28 years," down he went, and scampered across the tarmac and into the terminal.

And then this:

Slater was later arrested at his home in Belle Harbor, Queens by Port Authority officials. Police sources said that when authorities found Slater he seemed to be in the midst having sexual relations.

Slater is charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and criminal trespass. He faces up to seven years in prison.

The exit slide fiasco is bothersome, but not nearly as bothersome as the fact that this guy cussed out the whole plane. Where’s the professionalism? Where’s the patience? We all have our boiling points, but cussing out a passenger because of her juvenile behavior is petty and itself juvenile.

The funny thing (to me) is that most of the reader comments I have read from outlets covering the story are applauding this guy for standing up to the passenger. I cannot fathom how Mr. Slater’s actions can be praised, though I must concede I don’t know how I would have handled a similar situation.

Poor Mr. Slater faces some time in the pokey, but I suspect he’ll get off with a slap on the wrist. And as for Jet Blue, I think this little fiasco will help them sell more tickets, as perverted as that may be. And it may even cause DYKWIA passengers to think twice before degrading their flight crews.

About Author

Matthew

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he
travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 120
countries over the last decade. Working both in the aviation industry
and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in the New York
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7 Comments

I want to buy this guy dinner… I loved every part of this story and give him serious props for doing it. This should be a MasterCard commercial…. “Telling a passenger how you REALLY feel, grabbing a beer, jettisoning yourself down the escape slide and driving home… Priceless.”

I find the charges reasonable, and they all come from the slide, not his interactions with the passenger.

As for his overreaction, the only thing that makes it worth firing him for is the cursing over the intercom. Depending on what was in the bag, I could very easily see it being quite painful beside the cut, and the blood streaming down can cause someone to lose it, especially if there were other unpleasant incidents on the flight.

@Nathaniel – unfortunately the news reports of the incident vary wildly. Some have said that he looked out the window and made sure it was clear to deploy the chute, others like your girlfriend’s dad may be correct. It’s hard to know.

Either way this story about Steve Slater has struck a nerve with all customer service type employees. I still want to know what’s happened to the person that started this whole thing by standing up while taxiing.

I travel A LOT and I see stupid passengers do this all the time.
People are so jumpy getting off the airplane that as soon as it makes the slighest stop, people … especially in-front of the plane, starts getting up and and reach their “garbarge” in the overhead bin.
They most often ignore flight attendant when they start warning people.
Would love to see one of them get knocked on their a.. one day, but they would properly blame the Airline.

On a side note, I do think some Flight Attendant are behaving like holy cows, especially after 9/11, but I would not have their jobs for anything.

As for Steven … you Rock, man !
I like it when some people makes a statement with “Enough is enough” and what better way to do it like he did (and dont harm others in the process)
My 2 complaints is thought … 1) why wasent I on that flight 2) you should have kicked the woman out the door first.